Reaction to 2025 Leaving Certificate Classical Studies (Higher Level) by Tagdh McHugh, Classical Studies teacher at The Institute of Education.
- A more writing heavy Section A will push students for time.
- The theme of Philosophy will challenge students, but the questions were approachable.
A fair paper overall. Questions in both section A and B ranged from straightforward to more complex in terms of language. A more writing focused section A this year may have challenged students timing in the exam. The mandatory Section B question 11 may have also thrown some students as the thematic focus of the questions this year was Philosophy. However, the straightforward and accessible language of the questions should not have proved a barrier to students who were well prepared. Students that were well read on their texts and plays should have had no problems with most of the long questions in section B with the only tricky question being question 16 as the language in the Aristotle quote may have been a little inaccessible to some students.
Opening to Section A, students found a fair mix of questions that would have rewarded those students that were prepared. The language can be tricky at times and calls for students to pay attention to the language of the questions and answer all parts of the question. Most questions had a nice mix of content checking questions designed to assess students’ knowledge and more in-depth analysis questions designed to assess students’ understanding of the course content. This results in a section A that strikes a nice balance in each question between assessing knowledge and assessing skills/understanding. Where students might struggle is with their timing in this section as each question is more writing focused than previous years, meaning that there is less time per question for students to collect their thoughts and ideas before writing the more detailed (b) and (c) sections of questions.
Section B was a bit of a tougher than previous years with the mandatory question 11’s theme being philosophy, a section that most students might not be the most comfortable with, given the complexity of the ideas involved. Those that were clear on the tenants of Stoicism and Epicureanism and were able to identify examples of both from Horace’s odes would have performed well in question 11 A. The choice of questions for 11 B were broad enough to give students options but would reward those who were very familiar with Plato’s Crito and the arguments therein. The language of the questions was straightforward and accessible and should not have prevented a barrier to students.
Moving into the section later phase, students are given five questions of which they answer one. These were, for the most part, straightforward and accessible questions that most students who were very familiar with some of the courses most prevalent themes should not have had too much difficulty with. Question 14 and 15 in particular were uncomplicated questions that many students would have been pleased to see on the paper. The only question I feel might have given students difficulty is question 16 due to the verbose nature of the quote; this might have confused some students as to what the question was actually asking them to address.